La Vida Liza!

Liza Minnelli is a ball of energy. In between setups for her PEOPLE photo shoot, she poses Fosse-style, claps her hands and shakes her hips, and shows off her self-designed necklaces. “I’m not a still kind of person,” says the legendary singer-actress. “I’m a mover. Sammy Davis Jr. used to call me Princess Smoking Heels.”

At 64, Minnelli is showing no signs of slowing down. As she recovered from knee replacement surgery earlier this year, she kept busy by modeling clay (some designs led to pieces in her recent HSN jewelry collection) and putting together a new jazz album, Confessions, inspired by gatherings at her apartment on New York City’s Upper East Side, where she’s lived for 30 years. “I used to have parties, and people-friends-would come over and sing,” says the four-times-divorced Minnelli, who is currently single. “Everyone from Janet Jackson to Tony Bennett to wonderful singers that nobody knows. It was always very relaxed.”

Turning that intimate experience into something for her fans was a departure for Minnelli, who is better known for showstopping numbers-like her take on Beyonce’s “Single Ladies (Put a Ring on It)” in Sex and the City 2. “I’ve never done anything like it,” she says of the album, which features many of her favorite old standards, including “He’s a Tramp” and “All the Way.” “I’ve sat under more pianos in my life and just listened,” Minnelli notes.

So what’s her next move? “I’m open to a lot of different things,” she says. She’d consider a spot on Glee (“It’s very funny”), designing more jewelry-or collaborating with “rock and rollers.” Says Minnelli: “The phone will ring and something will happen, thank God. Really!”